This type of connectors is designed to expedite clothes ironing, since the iron is not directly provided with the main lead and can be handled more easily, for there is not risk of the cable becoming entangled and hindering ironing. However, this type of connector must meet certain requirements, for instance that the loop should not be damaged after the connector has been plugged in and out many times. Moreover, when the iron is not coupled to the stand, the user should be in no danger from electric shocks due to accidentally touching the elements under electric power.
Obviously, since the electrical output of irons of this kind is roughly 1,200 to 1,800 watts, the electric connection cannot possibly take place by merely plugging the iron's terminals or pins into the connector's socket terminals, because this would lead to strong short-circuit currents at such terminals and would rapidly deteriorate the same.
More or less complex solutions exist to solve these problems which essentially involve constructing the connector in the form of closed bodies, the lower part of which has been fitted with terminal strips for the connection the main lead and the top base of which has been fitted with holes which dimensionally and positionally coincided with the iron's connecting plug terminals. The holes were usually closed by means of a hinged cap or like element, so that it was almost impossible for the user to accidentally touch the electrical conductors inside the closed body.
As to the device arranged inside the connectors to prevent the aforesaid loop through the iron's actual connectors or terminals, various solutions were proposed of which one was disclosed in Spanish utility model application 8802926 which shows at least two pairs of connection elements, one for each of the iron's phases, and optionally another one for earth, such elements being elastic and provided with silver connections so that in each pair when the set is at rest, the silver connections are separated, whereas when the iron's plug is inserted, each of such plug's terminals impinges first of all upon one of such elements, without forming any loop, elastically deforming the same until it touches the other element, whereupon the circuit is connected through the silver contacts.
The above-described solution, which is perfectly acceptable theoretically poses functional problems in practice, since repeated bending of the mobile connection elements finally causes the same to break, and at best, permanently deforms the same, with the silver connections being permanently looped, both when the connector is in operative and non-operative condition, and therefore the connector is no longer functional and there is, in fact a loop formed through the iron's plug pins.